Yoga for Anxiety and Depression: A Path to Wellness

In recent years, nearly one in five adults in the U.S., the equivalent of more than 46 million people, have experienced mental illness each year. Almost half of these diagnoses are anxiety disorders, depression, and related maladies. The holistic components of yoga stand as a lone sentinel against these reasons for America’s failing mental health report card.

Asana and meditation are the mainstays of every yoga practice. A few good down dogs will make you feel better, as will closing your eyes and watching your breath. So will chanting, praying, or practicing supta baddha konasana. 

How Yoga Helps Alleviate Anxiety and Depression

Yoga is a complete mind-body experience. Mental and physical health are improved in the following ways:

Increased flexibility, strength, and balance: Yoga contributes to a host of factors that indicate good overall physical health, including at an appropriate weight for height and body type; better than average flexibility; good core strength; ability to balance; lung capacity of better than average (as a result of having to hold postures while inhaling and exhaling to lung capacity); and good cardiovascular health (from constantly being on the move during a yoga practice). Many of these can be measured objectively.

Good physical health builds overall well-being: With yoga, the improved physical health goes hand in hand with an enhanced mental state. Contributions to altered body states include bolstered self-esteem, aspirations, confidence, creativity, and self-efficacy.

An outlet for managing negative emotions: According to one study, many young people see yoga as a holistic practice that cements a tangible/embodied sense of deep relaxation and calm. More than 150 schools in the United Kingdom have implemented meditation as part of their regular curriculum, where children learn to “stop, breathe, and reflect.” By regulating awareness through practices of holistic consciousness, yoga learners can benefit directly from this outlet of escape.

Create new social connections: Based on the assumption that participation in any practice requires some form of social engagement, it was tested to what extent young people reported social dimensions connected to yoga. A few emerging studies showed that participants found great value in learning from one another during class. Implementing a social component, a best friend, among young people (20s) might be a very effective way to encourage increased participation.

Recommended Yoga Practices for Anxiety and Depression

Hatha, Yin, and Restorative yoga are styles of yoga that can be very beneficial for mental health. They all take a gentle approach.

Hatha Yoga has a slower pace and allows time to breathe deeply and relax, usually in poses, cultivating mindfulness.

Yin yoga consists of passive postures, usually on the floor, that people generally hold for three to five minutes. It aims to stretch deeply and sit with themselves, releasing tension in their bodies and minds.

People often refer to Restorative yoga as active relaxation or “conscious sleep.” Using props to support poses helps stimulate and relax the body to heal the effects of chronic stress.

Other forms of yoga have a more intense cardio element, which is also fantastic for mental health, but I’ll stick to the ones above for this piece.

Besides styles of yoga, specific poses can do a lot for your mental health.

A child’s pose is an active, gentle forward bend that can help your body retrieve its “fight-or-flight” survival instinct and soothe your nervous system.

Legs-Up-the-Wall Pose is an inversion that reverses blood flow (and, hopefully, your mood). It promotes an overall sense of relaxation with moments of quiet and reflection. It is also fantastic for the lower back.

Going through these poses alone once a day (along with some guided breathwork) is a practical resource for tackling the effects of poor mental health.

‘Belly’ breathing is the key to unlocking your inner Zen. Doing the breathwork in these poses long enough, time after time, you might realize that there’s calmness on the other side of all the chaos. Try some alternate nostril breathing to shake things up.

Creating a Personal Yoga Practice

Setting personal goals can be empowering. Mindfulness goals can be beneficial for people with anxiety and depression. Start by creating a practice tailored to your needs by grabbing a journal, making a working list, and watching it grow as you do.

Not every yoga class will get you closer to these goals, so don’t get discouraged if the yoga geographically closest to you is not a good fit. It’s OK to walk away. If keeping up with yoga “on the mat” is the most practical way to participate, browse your local studios online to see if they offer a class for mental well-being. Or see if a specialty studio in your area provides focused, goal-related classes. If this type of classroom setting is unavailable, look to an app. Most will deliver more than a simple audio overlay by offering goal-related, guided practices for anxiety and depression and many other healthy mind and body aspirations.

If you’re building on mental health resilience, a sustainable and regular practice for any time will provide many benefits. Yoga will not act as quickly as a shot of espresso, which is why the long game is so important here. Many people who are battling frequent depressive episodes find it attractive, because of the potentially impulsive nature of the illness, that it can be practiced quickly and privately, depending on the material of interest. Try some Yoga Journal online content for free or on YouTube.

Understanding Anxiety and Depression

Anxiety and depression are pervasive mental health disorders that present some well-defined symptoms. The anxiety disorder suite is the most common mental illness, and there are many, impacting 284 million people worldwide. The disorders in this category are characterized by excessive or unrealistic worry and tension that is difficult or impossible to control. Worries often accompany restlessness and at least three additional physical or cognitive symptoms lasting six months or longer. These include feeling keyed up or on edge, becoming easily fatigued, having trouble concentrating or finding their minds blank, becoming irritable, discovering that their muscles are tense, and/or suffering from sleep disturbances.

Anxiety is often joined by its cousin, depression, which impacts 264 million people globally. Depression causes severe symptoms that persist for two weeks or longer. These symptoms affect how people feel, think, and handle daily activities. Patients can become very sad, only being able to see the negative side of things. 

The Connection Between Yoga and Mental Health

Hatha yoga is about the basics: basic postures are known as “asanas” and proper alignment, whereas Vinyasa yoga requires more movement and smooth, fluid transitions from pose to pose. Ashtanga is perfect for those looking for a more physical practice with a set sequence, and Kundalini incorporates all the elements used in the other forms of yoga but with precise and different techniques to open the energy body and activate spirituality; the practice of Kundalini is meant to help guide you on your life’s journey. Science suggests yoga is a good sport for anxious (and related) mental health patients.

Meta-analyses showed results whereby those who participate in yoga, compared with those who don’t, show relatively significant anxiety and depression-reducing effects. Long-term benefits of yoga practice consist of various reported effects of impact over time, with some participants reporting immediate improvements in mood and vigor, performance time (if any), and a reduction in cortisol (a stress hormone that affects our mood) and norepinephrine stress response. Long-term benefits include improvements seen after the first session. Short-term benefits are those seen after the first session, which can make it an effective first-line treatment (almost). However, the same results are inaccurate compared to gold-standard treatments such as first-line pharmaceutical treatment. Yoga is also a very relaxing sport.

If you have a nervous predisposition or want to see where you go wrong (anxiety-wise) in life, this self-assessment guide may be helpful.

Yoga, like its physical health benefits, can also help manage anxiety and depression. It involves using physical postures and moving one’s body, which otherwise means exercising! The combination of this, incorporating focused, controlled breathing and meditation, i.e., mindfulness and relaxation, means that together, each part of this balanced recipe equates to one thing: a worsened mental state looking for some help.

Hence, even if yoga were to be slotted at number five or were the last on my list, I want to stress the importance and potency of this technique.

Yoga does not have to be expensive. Regardless of gym membership, classes can also be accessed via YouTube, including links that guide you through 15-minute variants of a “Quick Morning Wake Up.” With daily practice, increased resilience and personal awareness will become intrinsic after just a few minutes get underway, I guarantee you. Speaking from personal experience, the familiarity I now possess, combined with the renewed sense of mental clarity that I attain during and after a tiny, simple routine, really does continue to lighten the lighter periods of my life and makes the gloomy ones not seem so dark. For the keen yogis, links to a few great reads, including Desikachar’s The Heart of Yoga and The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, can help you investigate a deeper understanding of the tradition and philosophy from which yoga originates. Additionally, why not create a cozy environment with a home-hot flow for rainy Sunday mornings that get you down and for late-afternoon pick-me-ups that will keep you going?